Winter Hawk (51 page)

—like his Inauguration speech, recollected in its most strident and hollow fragments, which now made him want to retch. A
time of hope ... I pledge this administration to work unceasingly, with every nerve and sinew, in the cause of peace ... a planet fouled and desecrated with nuclear weapons ... a time of opportunity . . . on the edge of the abyss we might also be at the border of a Promised Land . . . our children . . a time of hope, time of . .

He shook his head savagely, as if to countermand the aircraft's first movements. He must meet Nikitin tomorrow—he glanced at his watch—
today,
Wednesday. It was twelve-ten on Wednesday morning. Today. In Geneva. Twenty-four hours before the signing ceremony, and he could not stall or bluff or call Nikitin to show his cards, because if he did, the Russian president would act up his outrage and go directly on TV to challenge him to explain to a desperate world why he wouldn't sign the treaty the billions of inhabitants of the planet were waiting for . . .

... all day, on TV screens around the world, they'd have seen the wire being cut and rolled away, that obscenity of a Berlin Wall being dismantled, the bombers going into mothballs and the aircraft carriers in dry dock; the missiles being loaded aboard flatcars and being taken home under joint military supervision. Calvin remembered his own particular desire to see the sleek, black-backed dolphinlike submarines coming home, rendezvousing off the East Coast, from Maine to Florida, emerging like a forgotten and terrible army from beneath the sea. So many of them—the Trident force, the deterrent—rising out of distressed white water . . .

. . . intended as a final symbol and gesture of peace. Every U.S. submarine on the surface, identifiable and heading home.

Twelve noon. Twenty-four hours before the shuttle was to be launched—no, twenty-eight, Priabin corrected himself feverishly, with inordinate self-criticism for his error. It was to coincide with the signing in Geneva, and Baikonur was—it was twenty-nine hours! Baikonur was four hours ahead of Geneva; the launch was to take place tomorrow afternoon. He rubbed his hand through his already disheveled hair, in reaction to the strange, distracting panic of his concern over time. Time, after all, was irrelevant.

Katya, he saw, was watching his every movement; like a faithful dog or an animal ready to spring, he did not know. The dog itself was oblivious, untidily heaped near the radiator. Katya had returned him—when? Half an hour ago—before she was aware of
Lightning.
A time of innocence.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out. "Sorry I told you. I shouldn't have. I've endangered you."

Katya shook her head. "It doesn't matter," she murmured; evidently it did. She did blame him for imparting his secret to her. Sunlight fell across his desk, across her pale hands as she twisted them together on the edge of the desk; across her denims where she had crossed her legs at the knee; across the carpet to the toes of his boots as he stood staring into the blank square of the window, fuzzy in his vision. "It doesn't matter now."

He moved to her and gripped her shoulder. She flinched. "It does matter," he muttered through clenched teeth. "That's the bloody trouble—it does matter, more than anything else."

She looked up at him almost wildly. "Then what the hell are you going to do about it, Colonel?" He released her shoulder, as if he had received an electric shock from her, and she turned more fully to face him. "Dudin's got a cold, so he says, the radio room is sealed and guarded, you can't make anything but a local call by telephone, the roads are guarded—I can't do anything, what are you going to do?"

Having crossed the office, he turned to face her. The dog appeared curious, even alarmed by their raised voices. Its tail
banged
against the radiator like a soft drumbeat.

"I'm sorry I told you. It—it just spilled out, as if it were too heavy for me to carry. Christ, Katya, I don't want you involved." Again, he rubbed his hair and began pacing the floor. "I just don't know what to do. There's nothing
to
do."

At the roadblock, they had politely, firmly turned him around and pointed him once more in the direction of Baikonur and his own office. GRU troops, supervised by an experienced captain—not that it mattered. The guns were in evidence, the implacability of their obedience to orders like the sharp smell of wood smoke permeating the scene. Even the helicopter had reappeared and accompanied him most of the way back to town. It had been simple. Almost an anticlimax. Turn around, please, Colonel, there's a good boy.

And he had done so. And sat there, scribbling on a pad like a psychiatrist recording nightmares—schemes and plans that were impossible to put into practice—or pacing the carpet or drinking coffee or smoking. The air of the office was blue with cigarette smoke, thick like that of a crowded bar. And all to no avail. There was no solution. He could not get out of the Baikonur area, could not get to Aral'sk or contact Moscow. And Serov, who knew how much he knew, would make his move soon.

He crossed to the window. Any of the cars down there, any of the many he didn't recognize, could have his office under surveillance. Serov needn't hurry, he wasn't going anywhere. He flung aside the corner of curtain he had moved, groaning aloud, then turned and saw the surprise mingled with contempt on Katya's face.

"What the devil do you expect me to do?" he challenged guiltily. "What can I do, dammit?" His fist banged the desk in muffled, limp emphasis. What was the point of taking it out on the woman? He shouldn't even have told her, used her as a sympathetic ear for this, of all things. He could have sentenced her to the same fate as himself, if Serov ever suspected that she . . . "Sorry," he murmured, waving his hand indecisively. "Sorry." He walked quickly away from her. "Dear Christ in Heaven, I almost wish Gant had got away with it." He turned to face her. "And you understand what that thought is costing me."

"Can't we do anything?" Her hands might have been held up in sign of surrender.

"What?" he shouted. "Me, not us—can't I do anything? It's not your problem, you keep your head down."

"But I know."

'Then forget." He rubbed his head and began once more to pace the room, motioning the old dog back to its position near the radiator. After a few moments, when Katya thought he would never stop and that her head would burst, he turned to her, then to the map on the wall. Posed himself in front of it, hand cupping his chin, head slightly on one side; a furious effort of concentration, or no more than an actor's posture, she could not tell.

"What are you looking for?" she asked finally, hearing her fingernails drumming on the desk and unaware for how long the noise had been going on. He did not answer, and she stood up and moved across the room, to stand beside him.

"Aral'sk is a hundred miles away," he murmured, as if thinking aloud. "There's a little more than a day left—say, half a day if I'm to use the night to hide in."

"How?" she asked.

"I'll have to walk it" He turned to her. "I can't just sit around and wait for what's bound to happen." His eyes were wide, looking beyond her.

"You can't walk it, not in a night, not in twenty-four hours."

"Then I'll drive as far as I can, to the security perimeter."

"Which way?"

His hand indicated the map. "The way poor bloody Kedrov went—out to the deserted silos, then across country here." His fingers stroked circles rather than a course of escape, yet his voice appeared convinced by his scheme. "Back through the marshes might be best."

"That's less than half the distance. It can't be done."

"I can't wait here," he snapped. "I don't want to end up like that poor creep Rodin! Pills stuffed down my throat or felling out of a high window. Serov knows I know—don't you understand, Katya?" He had gripped her upper arms, and they hurt with the pressure of his fingers. He was shaking her like a disobedient child with whom he had lost patience. "I'm frightened out of my skin, Katya, and 1 know I have to do something. I'm afraid for myself, I'm afraid for you, even for Kedrov. I'm afraid for the whole bloody world if these madmen have their way." He was utterly unaware of the pain he was causing her, the degree to which she was being shaken. "The whole bloody world—the poor, tired, sick-to-death bloody
world!

"Dmitri!" she shouted at him, and his eyes focused, saw her, fel* her arms, and released her, shaking his head as if to clear it.

She rubbed her arms gingerly, regained her balance.

"I'm sorry."

"Its all right." She forced herself to stop rubbing her arms. "You won't make it," she asserted. "It's too far."

"Then I'll have to steal or commandeer a car or a truck or a fucking tractor once I'm outside the perimeter."

She walked away from him, considering his desperation and his scheme. She was afraid for him.

"I'll need food, walking boots, my gun. You'll look after the dog?" She nodded absently. She realized he had to make the attempt, some attempt, but she could only visualize failure; and his death.
Lightning
, or whatever he called it, was still unreal to her; less real than the enmity of Serov. Her horizons were narrower than his; her practicality did not allow her madcap schemes or desperate remedies, but enclosed her in a narrow steel box of facts that could not be breached. She could not think, especially while he talked.

". . .a backpack, a good map, this way, across the marshes— they'll be empty now . . . making what? Five, six miles an hour. If I drive out as far as here ..."

A
truck pulled into the parking lot below the window. A military truck.

"... what's the time at this point? Say eight, eight-thirty, outside the perimeter. I need to know more about the terrain up there, the security ..."

Soldiers, GRU troopers, descended from the canvas-flapped back of the truck, whose exhaust plumed grayly in the icy air. Six soldiers and an officer.

"Dmitri—"

". . . fanning . . . that would take me farther west if I wanted to find a car—maybe this road here."

"Sir—'*

The soldiers moved toward the building, looking up at the windows, spreading out to cover the exits. The officer strode to the main doors. Katya turned.

". . . one farm, yes? Yes, another there. What's the distance?"

"Colonel!" she shouted.

He looked around at her, plainly startled. "What is it?"

"It's too late—they're here."

"What?" Priabin's voice suggested complete surprise. She looked at him. His face registered a slow coming to terms with what she had said. Then the color drained from it, and the realization gave him a stunned expression. He moved jerkily to her side at the window, in time to see the officer and two of the armed soldiers enter the main doors. Priabin whirled around, as if itemizing his office furniture, his possessions—a man about to be robbed. He ran his hands stiffly down his cheeks.

"What do we—?"

"Get out, Katya—get out of here! You're not involved. Just go back to your office—look as if you've been working there all the time—go on."

He had grabbed her by the arm and was pushing her roughly across the room.

"What about you?"

He shook his head. "Depends what they want. Look, whatever happens, you know nothing."

"But if you're arrested, taken away, what do I—?"

"Nothing. There's nothing you can do. Just keep your head down." Misha stood up and shook himself, tongue lolling. 'Take the dog with you," Priabin added. "Quickly. Come on, Misha, quick, boy!" He opened his door, pushing Katya and the dog into the outer office, snapping at his secretary: "Lieutenant Grechkova hasn't been here—I've been alone all morning. Understand?"

His secretary, red mouth still wide, merely nodded.

"I have to—" Katya began.

"Nothing. Understand me, Katya—nothing. Now go."

Priabin closed the outer door behind them, and felt the perspiration stand out on his forehead. His secretary, the widow of a KGB officer, appeared concerned.

"We're in for a visit—GRU. They may want to talk to me. I might have to go with them—just a routine panic!" He grinned shakily at her. Soothed her by patting the air in front of him with his hands. "Nothing to worry about. Just remember, no one's been here, I haven't even spoken to you. I'll explain when it's all blown over." He had walked to his own door, paused, holding it open, looking back at her. She was nodding her understanding; her eyes were bright with anxieties, her hands fluttered above her typewriter, as if he
were
dictating to her. "OK, Marfa, just play dumb. It's me they want to talk to. When they get here, show them straight in." He
nodded,
smiled palely, and closed the door behind him.

He looked at the map on the wall with a deep, sharp regret. He sat down at his desk, lit a cigarette quickly, puffed at it hungrily* then slowed his exhalation, trying to find a pose of relaxation, so that he would seem surprised. Fear, regret, a looming sense of disaster regarding
Lightning.
He felt the jangling of his nervous system in his chest and arms. Try to relax.

Secretary's face, then the GRU officer's features and bulk behind her, beside her, in the room ahead of her. He assumed surprise, molding the shock he could not prevent. Two soldiers were in the room immediately behind their officer. His secretary mumbled an apology, but he waved to her to calm herself even as he addressed the GRU major. A major—arrest, then.